Bosnian court won’t re-arrest war criminals

(AP) SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - A Bosnian court is rejecting a request from prosecutors to re-arrest nine Bosnian Serbs convicted of war crimes but released because of procedural errors.

The court ruled Thursday that since Bosnia’s law doesn’t foresee the re-arrest of somebody already convicted of a crime, the European Convention on Human Rights mandates the situation must be resolved in the suspects’ favor.

Six of the nine were convicted of genocide and sentenced to 28 to 33 years in prison for taking part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 1,000 Muslim men.

The men were released last month after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Bosnian judges violated their rights by applying a harsher criminal code than the one in force when the killings were committed.